Sometime After
by laceycake
Summary: A motley collection of moments and variations from a couple of very strange lives. Discontinued.
1. Fading

**A/N: A probably more apt title for this collection would be "Ridiculous Things Lacey Does When she Doesn't Want to Do her Homework", but that is prohibitively long. In any case, enjoy this rag tag bunch of one-to-two pagers. None of them are in continuity with each other unless otherwise stated, and they're all over the place in terms of tone.**

.

Fading

.

The miniscule community of Cielo was the only town of its age that could brag about still having its founding father as one of its population. On top of that, it was the only town _period_ for which that founding father was a machine.

When that first ragtag bunch of wanderers had stumbled upon the ruins that served as Cielo's foundation, cold and wet and skinny as bones, Wheatley had been there, tending a small patch of garden, apparently unperturbed by the rain, and he had taken them in, offering shelter and providing a veritable smorgasbord of canned or freeze-dried food.

They were so grateful for his kindness that they didn't stop to think why an inorganic being would bother to create such a stockpile.

That first band of travelers never left, and after a time another had shown up, and a third, and over the last 120 years what had started as a safe haven for the weary became a permanent farming settlement, and even if they were not exactly thriving, they were hardy, and happy.

Had Wheatley been human the townspeople would have worried that he'd work himself to death for their sakes; but his energy seemed boundless. He did everything he could for them, from helping with construction jobs to heavy lifting to simply dropping by for a visit and a (long, rambling) conversation.

He liked doing it. He liked these people, liked watching them go about their lives, liked seeing them happy. But still, more than anything he liked the fact that when he was working or celebrating a wedding or the birth of an infant he didn't have to think.

Because everything reminded him of her. Whenever he saw someone who he had held when they were barely bigger than a potato hobble down the road, bent and grey, he thought of her. Whenever someone baked a cake for any reason, or when it rained, or when the wheat crop came in, he thought of her.

And it still ached, a slow burning hollowness, to think of her.

It wasn't that he wasn't grateful for the time they _had_ had, god was he ever grateful. He had never been quite so happy as he had been with her; the feeling of contentment had been almost fierce, even as it had become obvious that she was changing even as he stayed perpetually the same.

It had been the hair first. The once uniformly dark locks were, very suddenly it seemed, laced with strands of delicate silver. He had liked the effect, at first, before he understood the significance of it. Then it was the skin around her eyes. They had remained as bright as ever, but they were rimmed with small grooves that had only gotten deeper as more and more days past. Even more alarming was how she had grown frail and thin and listless, and it had seemed to happen so _fast_, even if he knew that the process had really been gradual.

It seemed like their time had slipped quicker and quicker through his fingers, those last months, days, hours, _seconds_ scuttling away, far out of his reach and then it was over.

Her eyes had been the last thing to go, shining with that determined brightness, like stars, like the moon, like something as permanent as she was supposed to be.

He buried her in the yard of the decrepit house they had shared, and turned the surrounding plot into a little flower garden.

None of the citizens of his (and hers, he always added to himself, even if he could never hope to explain her to anyone) town knew the significance of that little flower garden, since expanded into a veritable maze of trees and parkland, the house, which he had abandoned, unable to stay there without her, converted into a university of sorts.

They had their theories, just like they had their theories about the town's name and the strange, unfamiliar tune that Wheatley was known to hum to himself, but few had the gall to ask him about it.

When someone did, and returned back to report to the others who were burning with curiosity, all they could say was that they had never seen someone look so wistful, so far away and sad.


	2. Unit

**A/N: Something a little bit different. Upping the rating to T for this one idk.**

.

Unit

.

When they first step out into the filmy gold light of the Outside, they are both disoriented and frightened. The years that had skittered past them and their long sleep, a different sort for the two of them, had cleaned away the people they had once been and all they have ever known was the Facility. They feel like they could fall up into the endless vault of sky.

Even though they are free now for a while they stay close to their once-prison once-home for a long while, huddled in the shadow of the metal shack, holding on tight and shaking together until the sun begins to die. It rolls beneath the horizon as it bleeds out, and the star-studded darkness that takes its place seems so much less threatening to both of them.

They set off, walking as close together as they could without tripping over each other, following where the wind-blown wheat points them. For a long time it's just the two of them, hungry and cold and bedraggled but together, and that's always enough.

They cling to each other against the emptiness of the Outside, shake together from hunger pangs or sickness or the same anonymous terror, and they marvel together at the loveliness of the sky, which they've grown used to, and the subtle music of the world around them, soft and organic and warm. They bathe each other and wipe the cold fever sweat from their brows and sleep in a tight tangle of limbs. They are happy.

When they eventually stumble into the village they aren't sure how to react to People, although the People welcome them with wide spread arms. They are given a small house and bread and jobs to do.

The hollows in their cheeks fill out, the dark rims under their eyes fade, and they grow strong and vibrant and they aren't afraid so much anymore. During the day they work together, and in the evenings when the work is done they sit together by the bonfire and laugh with Everyone, and at night when they return home they still sleep in a tight tangle of limbs, although now that they sleep in a bed they no longer have to pick leaves out of each other's hair come morning. Everyone sees them as a single entity almost; no one ever mentions one's name without the other's.

All the while something grows between them, a hot, aching hunger that food can't fill, a burning in the blood when they look at each other. They both know it's there, they both know that they both feel it, but they don't talk about it. One of them can't and one of them can't find the words.

The Something lingers and swells inside them quietly until one night when it storms. Outside thunder moans and lightening scars the dark sky, and electricity seems to pass between them as well. Everything becomes a mesh of heat and skin and wordless communication as they guide each other to a place paradoxical, where they are blind and deaf and yet somehow hyperaware. They break together, and while the rain falls outside, telling secrets that they think they can almost understand in this moment, they quietly reassemble themselves.

They're put back together a little different before, some of the pieces of one getting mixed in the other, and even if they are no more whole than they were before, they feel like they are. More than ever they are a unit, an unbreakable They, and life goes around and around and They go with it.


	3. Self Control

**A/N: Whoops. Ramping it up to M now because I am paranoid. Also: run-on sentences.**

.

Self Control

.

Chell has a feeling she's going to regret this come morning. He's so new to this body and there's no way he understands what it is that it wants and she's probably taking terrible advantage of him, but it's hard, so hard to think about the moral implications of what she's doing with his palms burning against her waist and the warm wet of his mouth on her throat and the rumbling moan passing from his chest to hers. So instead of doing the responsible thing, pushing him away and kissing his forehead and smiling softly to show she's not mad, she's going to just keep doing whatever it is she thinks she's doing. She tangles her fingers in his hair and arches into the electric touch of his hands and tongue and squirms against the growing stiffness in his lap, lets out a slow, shuddering breath at the hot press of it against her and the low whine that wrings out of him.

.

Wheatley has a feeling he's going to regret this come morning. He's so new to this body, and he doesn't fully understand what it is that it wants, not on an intellectual level, at least. What he does know is that this feeling, fantastic and electric and addicting, is far too close to the _itch_ for comfort. Doing what he's doing is feeding it and he's probably taking terrible advantage of her and he should stop but it's hard, so hard to stop with her scent and the taste of her skin flooding through him and her smooth, warm flesh beneath his hands and her fingers pulling gently at his hair. So instead of doing the responsible thing, pushing her away and explaining that he's not upset with her, that he just doesn't want to hurt her, he's going to just keep doing whatever it is he thinks he's doing. As she presses her hips harder against his, putting more pressure on the swell of heat and hardened flesh there he keens low in his throat, biting down as gently as he can manage on the skin of hers.

.

Everything is stretched tight and overheated and oversensitive and _fantastic_, and at some point in the night the line that divided one body from the other blurred into near invisibility. They move together; she is sinuous and serpentine beneath and he is solid above and their hips and shoulders tremble against each other's. The pressure of her legs around his waist and the press of her fingertips on his scalp and his back and her hitching breath and the way her body clutches around him has Wheatley feeling like he's about to fly apart and collapse into himself all at the same time. Chell feels lost in the way his weight pushes down on her and the friction of his skin sliding over hers and the way his limbs cage her and his voice vibrating through her chest, yet he is also her anchor. Something trips in her and she finds herself caught up in white-hot pinpoint terrifying bliss and she pulls him over the edge with her and they are falling together.

.

When morning comes and Chell opens her eyes the first thing she sees is his shoulder beneath her cheek and his chest slowly rising and falling. She peers up at his face and when Wheatley opens his eyes the first thing he sees is the soft arch of her eyebrows and her lips, swollen and darker pink than usual, curved in a small smile. They each study the other's satisfied, contented face for a while, and despite the vaguely-remembered reservations from last night, they find they don't regret a thing.


	4. Regret

**A/N: Something sad-ish this time, hmmm?**

.

Regret

.

Chell had forgiven Wheatley a long time ago.

True she had resented him, mistrusted him at first when she had found him dumped unceremoniously on the ground outside Aperture with his mind poured into the then-unfamiliar human body. But seeing how lost he was, how frightened, she had pitied him above all else and taken him in.

Over the past— how long had it been? Weeks? Months? In any case, since then, she had come to believe him when he said that he had been overwhelmed by something in that chassis, something Other that chewed into his thoughts and poisoned him somehow. She understood, and she forgave him.

That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that he couldn't seem to forgive _himself_, couldn't seem to think of anything other than what he had done to her back then. His frequent apologies would have worn on her nerves had she not been so certain that he meant every single one of them. She could see his absolute sincerity in the anxious creases around his mouth, in the dark shadows etched beneath his eyes, a testament to the fact that he never seemed to get enough sleep. She could feel him shaking sometimes in the bed they shared late at night though he always kept a cautiously respectful distance from her, causing the thin mattress to shudder.

No, she wasn't annoyed, but she _was_ worried for him.

It was eating him alive, she could see that very clearly, and it terrified her. What would she do if this guilt weakened him beyond the ability to function? What would she do if she lost him, if she was suddenly alone again? She hated being as dependent on someone as she was on him, and even more she hated that she didn't know what to do to help him.

Tonight he was sitting on the ground outside their hovel as he often did, staring into the black, star-spattered sky, brow knitted anxiously inward. He flinched when she touched his shoulder and it felt like something tore inside her.

Doing her best to hold back frustrated, frightened tears— no need to alarm him with her own ridiculous emotional excesses— she knelt on the ground next to him and crawled into his lap. For once he was too startled to speak, simply making a strangled noise of surprise. She wrapped her legs around his waist, twined her arms around his shoulders and held him, close and tight, her face buried in the crook of his neck.

She didn't know how long she stayed like that, just clinging on and praying that he would understand what she meant by this, she was at her wits end. Eventually she felt his arms shift, raising hesitantly, and hovering for an indecisive moment before finally returning her embrace, pressing his face into her hair.


	5. Making

**A/N: Posting something shamelessly SAPPY because I am shameless. Please enjoy your tooth decay.**

.

Making

.

Wheatley knows there is no way he'll ever be used to this.

How could he ever prepare himself for the way she looks in these moments, black hair fanned wildly over the white sheets, dark flush spreading beneath the skin of her face and chest, her lips parted and moving around senseless, soundless words. Her lashes flutter, the tendons in her throat pop into relief every time she swallows, and every now and again her bottom lip disappears between her teeth. He is captivated. Everything about her is a marvel.

But the look in her eyes, one of several that he would know anywhere but has never been able to name, is the most striking. One would think he'd be able to remember the electric jolt that runs through him, head to toe, when she looks at him like that, and he has tried so hard to burn it into his memory. But still it seems he always forgets, and it always catches him by surprise.

It still shocks him, even after all this time, that she would ever even allow him to be this near, let alone _want_ him in this way after all that he's done, but he'll never stop feeling grateful.

He murmurs into her ear as he moves above her, nonsense phrases bitten off into breathless moans more often than not; he is even less articulate than usual. She skims her nails lightly across his back, tangles her fingers in his hair and presses her mouth against his shoulder, and his capacity for speech dissolves entirely.

He can feel it building, a slow upward spiral of indescribable tension, ratcheting up notch by notch with every hitching breath she takes, until he thinks he might just come apart at the seams.

Something changes in the rhythm of her breathing, her fluid, sinuous movements turning frantic. Her back bows, her legs, hard muscle under soft skin, clench around his waist, and she ripples around him, pulling him inexorably to the edge. He concentrates, as much as he _can_ concentrate in his state, as she gasps and sighs, and he catches the barest glisten of sound, hardly even there but it's hers, her voice, and that is what finally undoes him.

Everything contracts and there is the moment where the world collapses on itself, and there's nothing left of anything but the two of them. She clings to him with every available limb as he arches and her body shudders underneath, and she is his anchor as the release rockets through him, better than testing, better than that first glimpse of bright blue sky, better than almost anything except perhaps the first time she had given him that unfathomable look and he had at last _known_ that he was forgiven.

The frenzy ebbs and he holds himself up with trembling arms, supporting enough of his weight so that he doesn't squash her, but he hovers close enough that he can feel her heart fluttering like a bird behind her ribs. He keeps his eyes shut tight as he struggles to catch his breath and he can feel her chest rise and fall, pushing against his as she tries to do the same.

When he opens them he sees her head listed to the side, her eyelids hooded and her face serene. When she notices his gaze she looks up at him and smiles, touching his cheek lightly as she lets out a breathy sigh of a laugh.

He rolls off of her to lie of his side and pulls her to him, tucking her close, and traces meaningless shapes along her back with his fingertips. When he whispers that he loves her, she doesn't say it back, she _can't_, but the way she smiles at him and leans her forehead against his, fingers delicately tracing the shell of his ear, conveys her meaning well enough. Why would she ever need words?


	6. Break

**A/N: Mood whiplash**

.

Break

.

They rarely quarrel, but when they do, it's ugly.

This time it's Chell's fault, and she knows it, and she doesn't try to shift the blame.

Not too much, at least.

She's being ridiculous and she knows it, but she still resents him sometimes. Resents him for what he did to her, for being so clueless, for being so affable and contrite and affectionate that she could not help but forgive him.

She forgave him, let him into her home, into her bed, her routine, and now he's so entangled in her life that there's no hope of extricating him anymore. She needs the company. She needs _his_ company, and she does care about him.

Maybe she loves him.

She tucks her face into her knees, balling up tighter, leaning back against the outside wall until she can feel the splintering siding digging into her skin. It would be so much simpler to just hate him, because then she wouldn't care when she hurts him.

And she does, she know she does. She has days where the sound of his voice makes her panicky and all she can hear when he chatters innocuously about whatever he fancies is furious demands and vicious jeers, and so she ignores him completely until the words come slower, more hesitantly, and finally stop.

She has days, like today, when she can't stand for him to touch her, and she shoves him away, and today he finally called her out on it.

He rarely yells, but when he does it brings sour memories right back to the surface and all she wants is to either hit him or run.

She wishes he was still in space, that he was still a core, that he'd attached himself to someone other than her, that she wasn't saddled with the responsibility of him or his feelings for her.

She wishes she were a better person for his sake.

She doesn't move when he comes to sit beside her, but when he puts his arms around her muscles seize up and she suddenly feels ill. There are several moments of tense silence. When he murmurs the meek apology that _she_ should be offering _him _she breaks like glass and starts to sob, and it's hours before he can calm her down.


End file.
